Very few books help you to ‘see’ … to look within or to look around. Most books either have to do with the mechanics and syntactic structures of writing as a means of communication, or they delve with morose obsession into academic musings on literature as a discipline. Zzzzz …

To be honest, I’m not sure if what artists need can really be found in a book, or perhaps even be imparted by another. What I do believe is to be creative, artist need the opportunity and freedom to ‘play’, both with themselves and with the world around them.

Real artists play with words, images and notions. They delight in the stimuli their senses offer them as they experience the world around them and their place in it. They combine the tangible with the intangible, the terrestrial with the celestial, the existential with the structural, and the mundane with the divine. Indeed, God may have divided the heavens from the Earth, but artists yearn to mix things up again.

Through their craft, artists like Nicole, enjoy creating mystical whims of fancy that take flight on wisps of inspiration. Scientists, on the other hand, like to break down such abstract ethereal ideas into concrete tangibles … especially so that they can publish a technical article or two on their analysis. For example, if you study the analytical literature on the painting styles of the ‘old masters’ in respects to form, function and style, you will soon fall asleep faster than downing a handful of Sominex and a few shots of bourbon will afford you … which I’m pretty certain is not the effect the artists had originally intended.

Taking Full Poetic License

In the movie “Walk The Line” there’s a great line where ‘Johnny Cash’ says, “Don’t give me no rules. All I got are rules!” Though truthfully I’ve never really been a student of classical literature, I do know something about the conventions of writing … or at least what the self-professed ‘experts’ say. For example, here in Greece, not only am I an English teacher, but I also train teachers how to teach the language and develop writing skills and such. In fact, at the ripe old age of 48, I’ve even gone back to school to do a masters in linguistics and TESOL. That being said, the writing I do here at the Wooly Yarn is my solace from the ‘rules’, the establishment if you will. This blog is my own personal sandbox where I like to play, and invite you to do the same.

As such, in terms of writing, or more specifically the arts, I enjoy taking full ‘poetic license’ in what I create. Here, I don’t want to kowtow to rules and conventions that might otherwise restrict my thoughts and my expression, especially since someone who’s more of an abstract thinker. I yearn to ‘do my own thing’, and relish doing so.

I think becoming a writer, or any artist, means realizing your vision in some personal way. All things begin within and eventually work themselves out. In my writings, there are times when I want readers to understand things plainly and there are other times when I want them to think for themselves, read between the lines, and react accordingly. Achieving these aims is difficult using standard sentence structure. In this sense, there is a difference between writing for ‘effect’ and writing for ‘affect’. Artistically speaking, this is why we have poetry and wrap lyrics around song, to express something more soulful than “what’s for dinner?”.

The Beads of Sweat

Very few things come easily to us in life. We struggle, toil and beat our heads against walls, often of our own making. We are admonished that practice makes perfect and that good things come to those who wait.

But artists can’t wait. They’re keen to jump into their ideas and are impatient in terms of waiting for perfection to set it. Art is messy, as it should be, because life is messy. And, from that chaos we evolve and keep evolving, as we must. Art is a reflection of that evolution; it is rarely static. A moment in life has profound meaning, and yet the next minute it is quickly forgotten. Yes, how quickly we forget.

Still, as Henry Miller once wrote, “When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn, chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written.” Yes, time changes everything. It makes us miss the subtleties in life, like the feeling of a bead of sweat trickling down your neck, when you’re standing in the rain. Poets, like Nicole, notice those subtleties, as much as good painters notice the changes in texture from shadow to shadow.

Writing As Loud As I Can

If you want to know what a word feels like ‘literally’, read Nicole’s blog. For writers, she mixes advice and inspiration, and then bedazzles with her poetry which leaves its mark on your psyche. She’s also a wonderful photographer with a keen eye for evocative nature. Her photos are easy to get lost in, themselves inspiring a thousand or more words. Visit her blog and learn the meaning of ‘being observant’. Maybe you too will learn to appreciate “the delicate sound of moonlight”.

I want to publicly thank Nicole, not only for supporting this blog, but for being a champion, in every sense of the word, of the arts. Please support her by visiting her website. You can even purchase and download a book of her poetry: